Syracuse parent group asks again to meet final candidates for school superintendent's job

David Lassman / The Post-StandardParents for Public Schools of Syracuse met with The Post-Standard editorial board to discuss the search for a new superintendent. They are, from left to right, Bob Gardino , Pamela Percival, Margrit Diehl and Peter Knoblock.

Parents for Public Schools of Syracuse, a volunteer, grassroots group, is pushing for the city school board to include the public in the search for a new superintendent.

The group wants the school board to introduce the two or three finalists to the public, which the board has done on occasion in past searches.

School board President Richard Strong says whether the board will do that depends on the wishes of the candidates. The board fears scaring away any candidate who want to remain anonymous.

Cascade Consulting Group and Say Yes to Education, a nonprofit education foundation working with the district to increase the graduation rate and to get more city students through college, are handling the search on behalf of the board. The board will make the decision who to hire.

The parent group’s mission has always been the belief that the community would be stronger if its youth were educated better, and that it is the responsibility of the entire community to make that hap-
pens, said Pamela Percival, a founding member and past president.

Members of the group argue that if the school board involved the community more in its decisions like the superintendent’s search or the closure of Elmwood Elementary and Bellevue Middle School Academy, it would engender the public support essential to the district’s success.

Here are some of the comments leaders of Parents for Public Schools made last week to The Post-Standard about the need for finalists to meet the community.

President Susan Fahey Glisson
“I’ve been thinking a lot about how integral it is that our city, the city players, the community members and the school district, all are on board with this next superintendent so that there is not any of this back-stabbing, there is not any of this rift, that is going on between (Superintendent) Dan Lowengard and (Mayor) Stephanie Miner.

“That we start this with a clean slate for the benefit of everybody. But, in introducing the candidates, the final candidates, to the community, I think it will also benefit the candidates. I feel like that would also benefit the candidates. I feel like they should know what the community is, and what the community looks like that they’re coming into. I would hate to think that they have a white-washed version of what they are getting into with Syracuse.”

Pamela Percival

“It seems like a particularly important time right now because there’s lots of opportunities, but these huge challenges that you know very well, many of them long-standing, some of them increasing recently, like the horrible budget news and what’s coming our way budgetwise. The long-standing challenges seem to be, in our view, very structural, with the school district and the city often at odds, without a sense that we really are all in it together, and that we stand to gain if we figure it out together. That rift has been long-standing.

“At this point we see the superintendent search as a real opportunity to build awareness that the whole community needs to be supporting the person coming in, but also that the person coming in needs the whole community’s support.”

Robert Gardino

“The issue is that there’s an option. We feel the option should be taken. And I think that it’s an option well warranted to open it up to the community. Let’s go back one step to the Elmwood School situation, which has gotten into an uproar. And one of the reasons why, I can only surmise, is that there wasn’t enough preparation of the community, their particular school community and parents involved, in the decision making.

“It’s an illustration that the community is not engaged and not involved in a very important issue. In that case, it was the closing of a community school, always going to be a problem no matter the positive or the negatives. Always. But is the negative going to be lessened if, in fact, you involve the community in the decision-making process?”